


Inertia Creeping

by sinaddict



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-11
Updated: 2005-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinaddict/pseuds/sinaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything's upside-down and inside-out between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inertia Creeping

**Author's Note:**

> Slight AU from the end of "Russkie Business" with pretzel-logic time twisting between parallel plot lines. Semi-sequel to [Hollow You Out](http://sinaddict.livejournal.com/15336.html), but it's not really necessary to read that one to get this. Title's from a Massive Attack song, lyrics are from "Wrong Way" by Beauty's Confusion.

**01\. don't take this the wrong way but you will never get the satisfaction you desire**

Veronica has said it before.

The thing about chasing the storm is that it wears you down, breaks your spirit. She just didn't realize at first how hard it is to keep building yourself up to be broken down again.

She wonders when she's going to learn to stop getting her hopes up. (_What goes up, must come down, right? And this is Neptune, so she knows it's going to come down in the harshest way possible for her._) She shouldn't be surprised that her mother slipped through her fingers again (_if it really was her mother at all; maybe she's just projecting and it was some pervert calling a number that was undoubtedly left on at least one men's room wall in Neptune_); she shouldn't feel like she lost something again because she couldn't even be sure she had a shot at finding it in the first place.

Funny how logic doesn't do a damn thing to make her feel any better.

"If somebody told me six months ago that I'd be _here_, and with _you_, I would've had them institutionalized," Logan says as he dumps packet after packet of artificial sugar into the cup of coffee he hasn't touched and glances around the deserted twenty-four hour diner. "What do you think sounds better, the 'Hee-Haw Steak and Eggs' or the 'Howdy-Doody Pancakes'?"

"You're probably safer with something that doesn't have 'Doody' in the name," she stirs her water absently with a straw, as Logan nods in agreement. "My mom's never coming back."

Logan looks up from the menu, his expression blocked by the sunglasses he hasn't taken off since he found her sobbing in her car in the parking lot. "She's not dead."

"Maybe she is. How the hell would I know?" There are tears burning in her eyes again, and she doesn't bother to blink them back. She needs to break; she can't start rebuilding again until she does. And for the first time since Lilly (_Lilly, Lilly, Lilly..._) died, Logan is the only one who could possibly understand. "Maybe she's dead and I'll never know for sure."

"This sounds like a conversation we should be having over tequila shooters."

"It's seven o'clock in the morning."

"So? The best cure for a hangover is another drink."

"I'm not hungover," Veronica rolls her eyes as he waves the waitress away before she can even ask what they were ordering. "I'm thinking getting drunk isn't the best way to solve my problems right now. Not all of us can pull off that 'drunk and pants-less' look."

"Come on, Ronnie, I'm sure you've been drunk and pants-less at some point," Logan lowers his sunglasses slightly to reveal bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes as he studies her. "And if you haven't, well, I have to wonder what else the soccer team is lying about."

Yeah, this is making her feel much better.

"Is that what I'm supposed to be doing?" Logan asks, and she realizes a few seconds too late that she didn't just _think_ that like she should have. "Okay, then. Come on, Mars. It doesn't have to be tequila. Any kind of alcohol will do."

"Is your goal in life to get me drunk now?"

"That was Lilly's goal." Logan's silent for a long time after he says it (and they both know Lilly would hate that), and he finally shoves his cup of sugar with some coffee in it aside. "It's worse to know she's dead than to just suspect it."

She doesn't bother telling him that if she'd asked him that last week, he would've had a different answer. (_The grass is always greener, right?_) "You know what the worst part is?" she asks with a bitter smile as she knocks the ice around in her glass. "If I did find her, I don't know if I'd tell her I've missed her or tell her to just leave me alone like she has been."

Logan doesn't say anything in response. (_What could he say?_) "I think I'd tell my mother I hate her."

They're both quiet after that.

~

**02\. this is not a punishment it's just a simple fact**

There are things in life that Duncan is learning to let go of. Lilly, mostly; along with any chance of a romantic relationship again with Veronica, no matter how much he still dreams about her... he is _not_, however, ready to throw in the towel with Logan.

Logan's been distant ever since his mother's memorial service, ever since Duncan looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and pity (_which probably galled Logan down to his bones, Duncan knows_) since Logan clearly couldn't accept reality yet.

(_You're one to be talking about facing reality,_ Lilly's voice smirks in his head. _Hello? Pot, meet kettle: you're black!_)

Duncan shouldn't be surprised that Logan would turn to Veronica for help. Underneath that new tough-girl exterior, Duncan still sees bits of _his Veronica_ peeking out, the Veronica that couldn't bear to see somebody hurting without trying to do something about it. And Veronica's mother is gone, too, so she can relate to Logan better than he can right now. She probably doesn't give him looks like he's delusional for not wanting to accept the hard truth.

(_But it still burns a little bit that Logan doesn't try harder to convince him._)

He didn't realize how much Logan was starting to depend on Veronica instead of him until he's watching them in the hallway, watching the looks on their faces as they speak to each other softly (without caring what anybody around them thinks of them being civil to each other all of the sudden), and when Logan reaches out and touches Veronica's arm, and she gives him that soft little Veronica smile that used to be reserved for Duncan when they were in love, the hollow in the pit of his stomach returns.

(_He should be there with them. She should be smiling at him like that._)

He pushes it away to joke with Veronica when she comes in to look at the decorations. He convinces himself he's more interested in Meg than the possibility of whatever's developing between Logan and Veronica that he's not a part of anymore.

But he wants to be.

~

**03\. when you try to find your happiness in someone who can't give it back**

When he asks Veronica if she knows what's going on with Logan, it's almost a last-ditch effort, the kind of question he doesn't expect her to actually have an answer to, but he asks anyway.

He's not sure why he's so surprised that she does.

"He's _still_ there?" Veronica's eyebrows furrow in that cute little Veronica way like they used to when he was helping her with her math homework, and she glances down at the cell-phone in her hand before shaking her head and telling him that she'd take care of it. Just like that. No explanation about why his best friend is camped out in a hotel in L.A. or why she happens to know about it.

Or, for that matter, when Logan and Veronica became a _them_ without him included.

Even as he offers Meg a lift home (_he tells himself he really does like her; she reminds him of Veronica before Lilly..._), he's wondering about what's going on with _them_.

He tries to tell himself he doesn't need to be a part of it.

~

**04\. you'll get burned and after one time most would just say lesson learned**

"You know that saying about misery loving company?" Veronica asks, her voice breaking with tears as she sits in the deserted parking lot of a truck-stop diner an hour out of Neptune. (Which is as far as she made it back from Barstow before she was crying too hard to see the damn road anymore.) "Pretty sure it's true."

Logan's voice is groggy and hungover as he asks, "Are you going to be Misery or Company?"

"Either," she sniffles and leans her forehead against the steering wheel. "Both."

"Yeah, that's what it sounds like," he sounds more awake as a new wave of tears hits her, and she _hates_ that she's still crying over her mother like some four-year-old, especially since this is the millionth time she's done this since her mom left. "You're about where I was yesterday, aren't you?"

"My Mom's not in Barstow," the words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, but she wants _so_ bad to believe that Logan won't be an asshole about this, that he'll be the Logan he's been since his mother died. "I thought-- I should've known better. She's not in Barstow, and she hasn't been calling me, and she doesn't even _care_."

Her voice breaks on the last word, and she's sobbing again.

Logan just asks, "Where are you?"

~

**05\. keep holding on and hope you'll break him down but you're the one who's breaking now**

Logan doesn't return any of his phone calls by the time Duncan leaves for the dance, and he tries to put it out of his mind because Logan does this sometimes (_drops out of sight for a few days, gets blind smashing drunk, and finally gets around to calling Duncan to ask for help, all without a fucking care about whether or not he's worrying anybody_) and Duncan needs to focus on whether or not he managed to convince Meg to come to the dance.

But when he watches Meg and Veronica walk in, he wishes he'd sent flowers to ex instead.

(_The grass is always greener, Donut,_ Lilly smirks in his head. _If you had her now, you wouldn't know what to do with her._)

And his sister is _still_ annoyingly right about him, even after a year of being dead.

He watches Veronica put the corsage on Meg's wrist and nudge her toward him, and for that brief instant where their eyes meet, he sees himself in this new Veronica -- still unsure, still not quite ready to let go, but willing to pretend otherwise. But neither of them will act on it, he knows, because there's too much behind them now.

(_Ugh, can you get over yourself, Angst Boy? If I wanted cheap melodrama, I'd watch Dawson's Creek._)

Shut up, Lilly, he thinks, and tries to be normal as he dances with Meg.

~

**06\. don't be so naive, it was only a dream; how could you ever believe it?**

The second time in twenty-four hours somebody knocks on her car window while she's sobbing her eyes out, Veronica decides that she's being _pathetic_ and hopes she can blame the whole damn thing on PMS because she is _stronger_ than this.

"Come on, Mars," Logan opens her door and leans against the side of her car as he waits for her to pull it together. "The food poisoning you'll get at this place will take your mind off everything else."

"Will you hold my hair back while I'm throwing up?" she tries to snipe at him, but it comes out sounding more like a plea than a taunt. She stumbles a little as she gets out of her car and tells him, "I hate feeling like this."

"Join the club," he walks with her toward the diner, staying just a little bit behind her like he's afraid to touch her. "Do you think they have hash browns here?"

He says 'hash browns' like another person might say 'cockroaches', with complete disdain and scorn. She opens the door to the diner and turns back to look at him. "Maybe if you behave like a good boy, they'll give you crayons to play with while we wait."

"Goody," Logan smirks at her.

~

**07\. i'm not trying to put you down; you've been doing that well on your own**

Duncan hates that the first thing he does when Logan drunkenly makes a spectacle of himself in front of half the school (_a rare event for Logan; he usually won't make a spectacle of himself for that small an audience_) is glance at Meg to see how she reacts. He hates more that he lets the slightly disgusted expression on her face influence him going to help his best friend.

Before he can shake that insanity loose, Veronica's already out the door after Logan.

And he hates that he knows he doesn't belong out there with _them_.

He hates more that he'd ditch Meg in a heartbeat if he thought _they_ would welcome him.

It only takes him a few minutes to convince himself to go check on them, and he lies to Meg about going to the bathroom. (_Boy, already starting with the lies, Donut? No wonder you can't keep a girlfriend._)

Shut _up_, Lilly.

Logan's voice carries down the hallway, but Veronica's is just a soft murmur from where he's standing, a soothing, placating tone as he watches her slip her hands around his best friend while Logan tries to dodge her and winds up falling into a door.

They look comfortable together, like she's been the one taking care of his drunken ass for the past year.

_Close your eyes and you'll lose them,_ he remembers thinking the last time they were together. It really sucks that he was right. He turns to go back into the dance, Logan's loud tones crashing over Veronica's soft ones in the background as he tells himself that he's glad to be going back to sane, predictable Meg.

(_God, Duncan, do I have to do EVERYTHING for you? Just go back out there and ask Veronica to help you get Logan home. You know she'll say yes._)

_I want to be here with Meg,_ he insists to the Lilly in his head when Meg's back in his arms, swaying to the music. _Let Veronica take care of Logan for once._

(_Ugh. You're so fucking hopeless. I don't know why I bother with you people sometimes ._)

~

**08\. if you can't get love, get sympathy**

Logan follows her home, all the way back to her apartment, even though he's sure she'll make it there fine without him. When she steps out of her car, she gives him an attempt at a smile that doesn't even look real from fifty yards away, and a half-hearted wave before turning away. He watches until she disappears from his sight, just to make sure.

He's not sure he likes seeing Veronica Mars so out of her element.

Even worse, he's pretty sure that this whole mutual breakdown over mothers thing means he can't make her life miserable anymore. It's hard to put his energy into plotting ways to belittle and upset her when he's seen first-hand that nothing he does will compare to how her mother breaks her.

He's _really_ not sure he likes having _anything_ in common with Veronica Mars.

His phone rings just as he's starting to pull away, and Veronica asks him, "Wanna watch bad 70's horror movies about tiny dolls coming to life and killing a full-grown woman on a crappy nineteen inch tv?"

He's not entirely surprised to find himself saying, "Nineteen inches? Wow, Mars, you're just the height of technology, aren't you?"

"Hey, it's even got this newfangled _color_ picture."

"Color, huh? How could I possibly pass up this opportunity?"

~

**09\. it was just make-believe; stop deceiving yourself and grow up, grow up**

It's four in the morning by the time Duncan finally manages to get Logan to answer his fucking door, and even then, he's sure it's just because he threatened to call Andrea Simms and tell her that Logan missed her desperately and was truly sorry about that whole her walking in on him with her sworn enemy thing.

Duncan's slightly impressed that Logan can fashion so many different insults using the word 'fuck' while he's hungover and running to the bathroom to throw up. He doesn't let on, though, because it's more predictable and routine (and okay, a little fun) to stand in the doorway of the bathroom and lecture Logan about how he should know his stopping point by now.

"Jesus Christ, Duncan, gimme a break," Logan finally groans ten minutes into the lecture. "You're worse than having a girlfriend. At least then I'd get some as a reward for listening to this crap."

(_What do you think he'd say if you told him you'd give him some, too?_)

Shut _up_, Lilly.

Duncan gives a theatrical, put-upon sigh and drags Logan back to the couch, fetching him aspirin and absently tidying up his pool house. "You gonna tell me what's going on?" he finally asks, leaning against the wall and watching Logan slouch on the armchair, looking miserable.

Logan groans at the sound of his phone chirping out a polyphonic version of Madonna's "Like A Virgin" (and Duncan almost doesn't want to know who was assigned _that_ ring tone since Logan makes a production of matching rings to people), but obviously decides it's the lesser of two evils and he'd rather answer it than try to explain himself to Duncan. He's silent for a few seconds, his eyes still closed and his arm flung over his eyes like the room is too bright for him, and Duncan can almost see Lilly curled up next to him like she used to be.

(_He's a lousy boyfriend, but he makes a good pillow,_ Lilly snipes in his head. _Well, that, and he's a good fuck. But maybe you already know that and just hid it from me, huh Donut?_)

_I never slept with your boyfriend,_ Duncan tells her as he half-listens to Logan manage a somewhat sarcastic remark to whoever he's talking to. _Some of us did have morals, you know._

(_Yeah, you were big on the morals when you were trying to get into Veronica's pants, weren't you? Too bad for you, I got as much action from her as you did._)

_Shut UP, Lilly._

"You're about where I was yesterday, aren't you?" The way Logan speaks, the tone of his voice, catches Duncan's attention before the actual words do, and he finds himself wracking his brain trying to remember who Logan was with yesterday that would bring out that soft side of him that only Duncan and Lilly were supposed to see.

And then it hits him.

Veronica.

He asks where Veronica is, and she obviously tells him, because he sobers up real fast and makes a beeline for his pants on the floor and his car keys on the dresser. "Where are you going?" Duncan asks, unsure whether he'd rather hear the truth or have Logan tell him a nice, easy lie.

"Pick up a friend," Logan answers noncommittally, and Duncan's stomach drops a little further to his feet because Logan hasn't referred to Veronica as his friend since weeks before Lilly died. And it aches somewhere in his head that Veronica is becoming more Logan's friend than he is.

_It isn't fair,_ he thinks. _They're both supposed to be mine._

(_Ooh, somebody's a little selfish today. And to think, you were always the one who got gold stars for sharing his toys._)

_I only ever shared with you,_ Duncan snaps at the Lilly in his head. _And that's because you cried when I didn't._

(_Yeah, and you fell for it EVERY time,_ Lilly tells him gleefully. _Don't be a moron. Ask to go with Logan. You know he'll let you._)

He wants to. God, he wants to.

Instead, he says, "You sure you can drive?"

Logan rolls his eyes. "I'm pretty sure I puked up all the liquor."

This is not the meaningful, dramatic end to their friendship that Duncan thought it would be. Nevertheless, he's damn sure that once Logan walks out that door, they won't be friends anymore, at least not the kind of friends they've been.

(_Okay, Dawson,_ Lilly mocks him. _You're just doing this so you have a valid reason to mope and brood, aren't you?_)

"Have fun with your friend," Duncan says, ignoring the Lilly in his head and the ache in the pit of his stomach. Logan just nods and starts out the door, calling over his shoulder that Duncan should lock up when he leaves.

(_You didn't listen to a word I said,_ Lilly huffs. _You're so dumb, it's scary. You KNOW you could have had them both, don't you? All you had to do was LISTEN to me, and I would've gotten them both for you, but no... you had to go and think for yourself. You should know by now not to do that!_)

"I don't deserve both of them," he says quietly. "They'll do better without me."

And he finally found something that shut Lilly up.


End file.
